REVIEW RSS FEED
REPORT: OBAMA USING BLACKWATER FOR PAKISTAN ASSASSINATIONS
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091207/scahill
Stephen C. Webster, Raw Story - The Obama administration is using mercenaries with the firm formerly known as Blackwater to kidnap and assassinate high value targets in Pakistan, according to a published report.
The program, operated out of the US Joint Special Operations Command, "is so 'compartmentalized' that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence," an unnamed source with direct knowledge of the program told The Nation reporter Jeremy Scahill.
Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, is also allegedly involved in intelligence collection for a drone bombing campaign in the country. . .
A Blackwater spokesman told The Nation that none of its forces are operating in Pakistan. However, a "former senior executive at Blackwater" told Scahill that Xe's mercs are indeed working in Pakistan, sometimes employed by the country's government to operate alongside soldiers. The arrangement allows the Pakistani government to deny any U.S. military presence in the country, while allowing them to tap former U.S. special forces members for high-risk missions. Scahill added that the CIA is also employing the firm in parallel operations.
"Targeted killings are not the most popular thing in town right now and the CIA knows that," Scahill's source reportedly said. "Contractors and especially [Joint Special Operations Command] personnel working under a classified mandate are not [overseen by Congress], so they just don't care. If there's one person they're going after and there's thirty-four people in the building, thirty-five people are going to die. That's the mentality. They're not accountable to anybody and they know that. It's an open secret, but what are you going to do, shut down JSOC?"
During the Bush administration, the JSOC was reportedly being commanded by the vice president's office, effectively making them Dick Cheney's own "executive assassination squad," according to investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.
President Obama's top official on the occupation of Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, oversaw the JSOC from September 2003 to August 2008.
Stephen C. Webster, Raw Story - The Obama administration is using mercenaries with the firm formerly known as Blackwater to kidnap and assassinate high value targets in Pakistan, according to a published report.
The program, operated out of the US Joint Special Operations Command, "is so 'compartmentalized' that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence," an unnamed source with direct knowledge of the program told The Nation reporter Jeremy Scahill.
Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, is also allegedly involved in intelligence collection for a drone bombing campaign in the country. . .
A Blackwater spokesman told The Nation that none of its forces are operating in Pakistan. However, a "former senior executive at Blackwater" told Scahill that Xe's mercs are indeed working in Pakistan, sometimes employed by the country's government to operate alongside soldiers. The arrangement allows the Pakistani government to deny any U.S. military presence in the country, while allowing them to tap former U.S. special forces members for high-risk missions. Scahill added that the CIA is also employing the firm in parallel operations.
"Targeted killings are not the most popular thing in town right now and the CIA knows that," Scahill's source reportedly said. "Contractors and especially [Joint Special Operations Command] personnel working under a classified mandate are not [overseen by Congress], so they just don't care. If there's one person they're going after and there's thirty-four people in the building, thirty-five people are going to die. That's the mentality. They're not accountable to anybody and they know that. It's an open secret, but what are you going to do, shut down JSOC?"
During the Bush administration, the JSOC was reportedly being commanded by the vice president's office, effectively making them Dick Cheney's own "executive assassination squad," according to investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.
President Obama's top official on the occupation of Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, oversaw the JSOC from September 2003 to August 2008.
7 Comments:
Change you can believe in. Bad English, bad logic. I told you so, suckers. Read some more Dailykos bullshit.
Obama was talking about escalating the war in Afghanistan and killing people in Pakistan before the primaries started. No surprise there. What's surprising is how 'progressives' are dropping their opposition to the war -- first it was 'Code Pink', now comes the 'Network of Spritual Progressives':
"Of course, we recognize that effective development needs security, and when we have massively intervened in a country as much as the U.S. has in Afghanistan, we can’t responsibly just walk away ..."
http://blog.sojo.net/2009/11/19/the-future-belongs-to-those-who-build-an-open-letter-on-afghanistan-to-president-obama/#disqus_thread
It is change you can believe in. Barry turned into George. Now the only question is whether that's GW or George III? Not that the distinction much matters. Of the latter, Thomas Jefferson once wrote:
---"He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized Nation."
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
and on it continues...
We have entered a new epoch. One where freedom, democracy, fairness and due process are publicly touted, but here reality is just the opposite. We should be worried, very worried. Right now, these assassination operations are being perpetrated abroad. How long before our clever leaders determine that these measures need to be applied right here at home? Of course that will happen - as surely as God made little green apples. Here's a parallel: at one time, only the largest cities in the country had (or even needed) SWAT teams. Now every podunk burg that can afford one has a SWAT team. All the "forces" want riot gear and be outfitted like military black ops. They are using military-speak too. Such as "deploying assets" and other inane, revolting military jargon. There are simply an insufficient number of real enemies to feed this Moloch. Too many eager players and too few legitmate targets. So you and I and our neighbors will eventually be pressed into service in the role of the "enemy".
Bet on it.
Gee, what a shock!
Someday, maybe American voters will learn that voting for a phony rock-star image that's funded by tens of millions of wall street money isn't exactly the path to change.
The simple rule is this. Never vote for the candidates on TV. If they have the money to be on TV, they are not on your side.
Never vote for the candidates on TV.
To anonymous at 10:47....
Your description of the 'new era' is accurate. Unfortunately for America, what you describe is the Democratic LBJ administration.
We've been there for awhile, unfortunately. Maybe you should read about the assassination of the Black Panther leaders. Or COINTELPRO would be a good thing to type into google.
Various groups of Americans have always been 'the enemy'. What's only changes is whether they are called 'communists', 'hippies', 'black nationalists', 'welfare mothers', 'militias','queers', 'muslims', 'terrorists', or 'terrorists sympathizers'.
Each party when out of power will pretend to be critical of this. And each party tries to create the political myth that something is new and only just began with this administration. Which of course leads to each party saying they'll bring 'change'. Which of course never happens.
What a joke. Stop reading Scahill and watching Rambo marathons on AMC, dork.
If you weren't so naive and pathetic, I'd call you a paranoid psychotic. I think the strain of living in this police state must be just a bit too much for you. You should move to Cuba where Fidel will take care of you.
Post a Comment
<< Home